


Green Clothes and Heroic Smiles

by wasabiandi



Series: LinkedUniverse [1]
Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Study, Father time, Hurt/Comfort, Just a 14 year old with an identity crisis, Linked Universe, LinkedUniverse, Mother Wild, Newly met heroes, Whump, Word spill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:21:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23115403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wasabiandi/pseuds/wasabiandi
Summary: Wind would have been a little more excited when he met Time, but how could he? Time was old, cold, and didn’t have a lick of green on him.It was infuriating.[Wind reflects on Time, and everything he thought he knew about being him.]
Relationships: Time & Wind, Time & Wind & Wild, Wild & Wind
Series: LinkedUniverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661530
Comments: 4
Kudos: 241





	Green Clothes and Heroic Smiles

When Wind looked at Time, he failed to see the little boy he looked up too. He couldn’t see the child from the legends his Grandma told; the young boy, donned in Green, with hair bright as the sun and eyes as blue as the sky it sits in, who saved them from unimaginable horrors. He knew his fictional hero as well as he knew his own reflection, so when Wind had looked up to the man behind it all, he couldn’t see it. 

He couldn’t find a flair of green, nor a hint of youth, in the hero before him. Sometimes a smile, but not in the way heroes were meant to wear - not the charismatic, unaffected gleam that Wind had imagined, but rather a tired, lazy quirk of his lip. From his smile to his clothes, Wind had always eagerly dreamt of the similarities they would have shared had they ever met. After all, boys on Offset celebrated him - they honoured the legend by wearing green, to commemorate the tall figure looming behind him. 

Wind would have been a little more excited when he met Time, but how could he? Time was old, cold, and didn’t have a lick of green on him. 

It was infuriating.

It was terrifying when you were expected to match a grown man - to fill his shadow, to stand in his boots and wear his garments, and yet be incapable of measuring up to him. The same coloured hair and the same bold, blue eyes weren’t enough to prove their likeness, nor descent. The same rosey cheeks, and the same way their ears twitched expressively were only the smallest of likelihood - and Wind wasn’t anything like Twilight, who carried himself the exact same way, spoke the same way, and commanded with the same firm tone - if only less matured. Wind knew something deep down set him and Twilight apart in Time’s eyes. But he couldn’t find reason to hate him for it. He couldn’t find it in himself to hold it against Time, much unlike Legend who _outdid_ the hero who was meant to wear green. 

Wind wasn’t like the others. He had two adventures, and yet was still regarded as the lesser Link - the weaker Link, and he hated that. He hated now knowing the exact image he was meant to represent, the reflection he was supposed to have, even if it meant chiselling away the very being Wind was. 

Because unlike Wind, Time had a tense lip, a hard gaze, and a poker face that could rival the blank solemness in the statues Wind had decided to accompany that evening. The longer he looked into their dull, unseeing eyes, the more he could see Time in the cold stone. He could always see ‘Time’ back home; in grand mosaiced windows, or hand woven tapestries, even painted on walls! All those renditions although couldn’t match the stone - he felt the stone represented him better.

The curves and blank neutrality of the weathered surface stared back at him, fire light cascading upon it in flickered patterns. It was fierce - Time was fierce, and Wind could never be like time.

-

Wind beamed emotions, and couldn’t stay quiet for too long. He was childish, and clumsy, and still so young compared to his teammates. But despite his insecurities, he was aware that his age wasn’t that far from the others, and he knew he had journeys the others couldn’t even imagine. He knew he wasn’t expected to live out the journeys Four had, nor the one that Sky endured, and he knew that Wild - with his many years of many legends, had never been expected to live up to Wind. So why was he expected to be Time? To be like the man looming behind him, who looked nothing like he had imagined. The Time that didn’t wear green. The Time he had to match… to be.

When Wind had met the Deku Tree, he had already been tired. He was exhausted, but in absolute awe of the world past the shores of Offset. He felt like he belonged, in green, amongst the branches and the fauna. He felt at home, wobbling his way up the rocks, hearing the sea crash, until words fled the barked deity. Words that left in a language Wind didn’t know, words intended for someone that was not him, but rather the Hero from before. 

And whilst Wind had wanted to feel pride for having followed their footsteps so well, he couldn’t quite mask the expression he knew he bore. The tree looked confused, and Wind felt inadequate.

Wo when Time first met him, looked into his eyes with the same blue hue, and the same quirk on his face, and said his name - his title - in the same dialect as the Deku Tree or Jabu Jabu had, Wind felt fear in ways he hadn’t experienced before. 

He had big boots to fill, and he didn’t know how.

“Oh! Sorry, do you mind if I quickly-” Wind jumped, looking up to Wild as the older teen sheepishly chuckled. He placed an apple in the bowl in front of him, before moving to the next. He smiled warmly, almost knowingly, in a way Wind hadn’t seen in a long time, “You’ve been here a while, are you okay?” 

Wind nodded, but he knew it was useless. His face always gave away too much.

He was grateful he said it in front of the person who could never say too much. Wild simply hummed, smiled, and placed a gentle hand on Wind’s shoulder. Wind knew he wasn’t alone in his fear - his insecurities. He knew he wasn’t the only one alone with his thoughts, and he wasn’t the only one who had a shadow to fill. At least Wind’s shadow wasn’t his own. “You know, sailor, a little birdie told me you might recognise these…”

With a loud gasp, Wind jumped back, staring at the little wooden creature, who gleefully announced his arrival. It looked so familiar, so akin to the one he knew - and the excitement that bubbled up his chest was impossible to hide. Despite the obvious childish glee though, Wild just merely chuckled, as Wind exclaimed, “You can see these?!” 

“All over this Hyrule, they’ve been hiding. Playing hide and seek, I think?” Wild’s eyes flickered back, and he breathed out a short laugh before turning to Wind, who thought nothing of it. The younger teenager simply so enraptured by the little creature he hadn’t noticed that his statue had lost it’s fierceness.

Time knelt behind Wind, a comforting hand clasped on his shoulder, as he looked at the little wooden create with a fond smile. A more heroic smile, if Wind could admit it. “I used to be an expert at hide and seek… growing up with these little fellas and all…” Wind was stiff, on guard, but Wild simply smiled - sickenly maternal in the way he took note of his surroundings. Time had blocked the view of the camp, but the buzz was still present, so Wind felt he had no audience. No one to witness his vulnerability.

“You grew up with Koroks…?”

Time Hummed, and there it was again - that quirk in his lip, the one both Wind and Twilight somehow shared, even without exposure to the hero. “Not exactly. When I knew these little guys, they looked a bit more like us. In fact, very much like you.” He ruffled Wind’s hair, as Wild scooted a little bit closer, interested in the taste of history that had been unfamiliar. The trio had surrounded the statue, the Korok simply fluttering with a chime on the breeze.

“I’m not a Kokiri though!” 

“Neither was I. But they’re fun, aren’t they?” The smile was bright, and Wind caved. He knew Time saw it, and he knew Wild had hoped for it. The emotions Time displayed weren’t the dull, adult looks he was used to. The childish glint and the creases in his eye felt like a brush of cold air, where for a change Wind wasn’t looking at a stranger, but rather the little boy with bright blue eyes and heroic gleams, and they were directed at him most of all. “Most of my friends were from the forest. They loved their games, and I guess I did too.”

Wild collected the seed from the korok as Time stood, “Shall we get back to camp?”

“Can I ask you something?” Wind tilted his head, his lips pressed for a moment, “What were the Kokiri like?”

And Time, with the softest smile he could muster, simply chuckled, “Childish, all wore green, I have to say. Green used to look quite flattering on me.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this floating around on tumblr for a little while, and figured I would post it finally, especially with the comic the way it is at the moment C.C  
> I dunno how I feel about this representation of Wind /yet./ Only just getting my characterisation down.


End file.
